James Delahunty
1 Sep 2009 0:58
Electronic Arts CEO Rich Hilleman has revealed that he expects Sony and Microsoft to develop hardware updates for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (PS3) before they move on to the develop the true next generation of home consoles. Hilleman explains incremental changes to the systems as 'Xbox 560' and 'PlayStation 3.5', to represent a gradual move toward the next generation.
He made his comments at the Hot Chips conference in Stanford, where he said that both of the console makers had dedicated an enormous amount of resources to establish their current generation of home consoles on the market, and are not likely to rush the development of brand new home consoles in a fast changing market.
"I expected we'll see a PlayStation 3.5 before we see a PlayStation 4 and an Xbox 560 before we see an Xbox 720," said Hilleman, reported Venturebeat. "The biggest shift is how fast packaged goods games are changing and going away." Both Microsoft and Sony have been left financially bruised from the costs of marketing the home consoles on the market.
Alarm bells in general have been raised due to the costs involved in not only marketing in the industry, but also the rising costs of game development and stagnating profits for developers. Electronic Arts reportedly makes $35 on a $60 sale of a single new game, which apparently makes the average sales requirement for each title 1.1 million units just to break even.